Desperate Secrets (Mergers & Acquisitions #8)

Prologue One-Cecilia

Being a Batiste means two things—loyalty and power.

Everything else is optional.

My father built Viper Enterprises along with my uncles, Nico and Angel Fury, from a mix of grief, rage, brilliance, brutality, and blood.

As for me? I followed in his footsteps.

Princeton Law.

Top of my class.

Bar exam aced.

Now I spend my days buried in contracts thick enough to crush a man’s spirit, making sure every shady, brilliant deal our family touches stays just this side of legal.

It’s not a bad life. It’s just tight.

Predictable. Caged.

So, I take my freedom where I can find it.

In my hair—wild corkscrew curls that refuse to obey, cut short to my neck in the back, then to my shoulders in the front—like some punk rock dare.

In my ink—coiling tattoos that trace my skin, a Viper curling around my hipbone, smaller pieces along my wrists, spine, and yes, I even have a blue fairy inked right on my left ass cheek.

In the piercings—four in each ear, a glint of gold in my nose, and two secret bars through my nipples, and more in other places—all of it serves to remind me every day that my body, at least, is mine.

Most men can’t handle that.

They want the polished daughter of a crime-king-turned-CEO, not the woman underneath—the one who burns for more.

Then Atlas James walks into our boardroom.

Atlas.

James.

Just his name sounds like a warning label.

And believe me, he lives up to it.

He’s rich—obscenely, tastelessly, old-money rich.

He’s very well-educated.

He has a reputation that makes CEOs straighten their ties and sign NDAs before he even opens his mouth.

And he’s supposedly tough as nails, though personally? I suspect the nails would lose.

No trace of an accent despite the rumors about his Greek upbringing.

But then again, princes are trained to blend in when it suits them.

Yes, princes.

Because just recently, in the kind of late-night rabbit hole only too much espresso can produce, I found out his real name isn’t James.

It’s Stavros.

Atlas James Stavros.

He uses “James”—his middle name, his American mother’s maiden name—when he’s in the States.

He hides the rest. Like it’s some big secret—only it’s not.

Most people are just too lazy to dig.

Luckily, I’m not most people.

So yes, the part where his father was, well, let’s just say “famous” isn’t the word, is not something he advertises in the States.

Recognize the last name yet?

Yeah, you do.

Stavros.

As in, the former ruling family, who sit on gilded thrones and run entire Mediterranean regions—mainly Greece— with smiles sharp enough to cut steel.

And that makes him—get this—fucking royalty.

A Greek prince.

Well, an ex-prince since royalty was abolished in Greece in 1974.

But that’s just a technicality.

And honestly? No one would know unless he told them.

But once I found out, it was so obvious. I mean how could I think of him as anything but?

Not with the way he carries himself.

Tall.

Sculpted.

Tailored within an inch of his sinful life.

Expensive in the kind of effortless way that says I don’t check price tags, I buy the brand outright.

His eyes—God help me—are caramel laced with heat.

The kind of heat that warns you not to touch but makes you want to, anyway.

His mouth could start wars.

His shoulders might end them.

And his voice?

His voice rolls through me like honey poured over smoke—sweet, thick, dangerous.

Not the foreign accent I expect, but he’s well-spoken, charming, and sexy as fuck.

He’s here to negotiate an international shipping agreement for his product.

Guns.

High-end, military-grade guns.

And I’m here to make sure the Vipers—Viper Enterprises, our company, our empire of lawyers and killers in suits—don’t get sued. Or arrested. Or slapped with a cease-and-desist from the U.N.

Easy enough.

At least, it should be.

But the problem?

My brain refuses to stay on the paperwork.

Every time I see him—every time he leans back in that damn chair, sleeves rolled up, wristwatch gleaming like temptation—I lose my place.

My thoughts slide right into the gutter like they pay rent there.

I imagine his hands on me—strong, commanding, warm.

His mouth tracing the same lines my tattoos follow, claiming every curve.

I imagine his breath on my throat, his name on my lips, his body crowding mine against the boardroom wall like a scene that belongs in a scandalous HR report.

And when he looks at me—that sneaky, little flirtatious side eye he thinks no one else sees—I feel something snap tight and hot inside my chest.

A pull.

The kind you don’t admit to.

The kind that ruins even the best-laid plans.

The kind that feels like fate wearing a bespoke suit and a smirk.

And I know—I freaking know—nothing in my life is staying simple after this.

He’s dangerous. Sexy. Watchful. Secretive.

And that’s just like catnip to me.

He’s a mystery I want to unravel. A puzzle I want to solve.

And those golden brown eyes? They promise something my body seems right on board with.

I tell myself to focus.

To stay professional.

To remember who I am.

But the truth is, I’m not sure I want to.

Because Atlas James Stavros might be the most beautiful mistake I’ll ever make.